Half-Assing it | Girl Boss

I joke around a lot about being a procrastinator. 

But if anyone REALLY knows me. They know it's not a joke. 

I AM an procrastinator.

Am I proud about it? Meh. I mean ... I've accepted the fact that I will always wait last minute. But I really do need to get better at planning and organizing my life. But if the job gets done ... why change?

Granted, I also have accepted that if I actually worked towards accomplishments a little harder ... I'd be more successful. I'd have more accreditations. I'd probably have more money. I might go on more vacations. I could probably afford a nanny and maid. 
Meh.
Am I comfortable where I'm at?
Yes. 
And that might be the issue. 
I've had a pretty easy life. Things seem to always work out for me and I've been really lucky. Jobs, schooling, and opportunities just happen to fall in my lap. And if something didn't - I'd take the hit and move on. 
Don't get me wrong. I have worked hard in my life to get where I am. If I want it, I get it. I've had failures but I haven't dwelled in them. I think why I love journalism and the media work life is that I was always given a deadline. I always made deadline. Always. Don't matter how I made the deadline - but I made it. It may have been the last 5 minutes I wrote the story - but I made deadline. I may have drank 5 cups of coffee to hit that deadline - but I made it.
The best business practice? Probably not. But it works for me.
I need to stop and work harder. I know that. 
What do you guys do to change a habit? How do you stay on task? How do you ensure you're always putting your most effort into something? How do you work from home and on your own schedule?
Please, I'd love to hear from you!

Should You "Niche?" | Girl Boss

Ever since the beginning ...

That sounds like I'm going to get all philosophical, huh?

Ever since the beginning ... of my hobby turned professional business, I've heard the words,

"Find your Niche."

Niche.

Watchu mean my "niche?"

I'm a photographer. 

That's my niche ... bitch.

LOL

Sorry had to.

But seriously, all the successful photographers - or at least whom I viewed as successful, were telling me to pick a niche and stick to it.

Meaning, pick a genre to photograph and nothing more.

Because my background is in photojournalism and thats really wear my heart lays --

I chose to tell people I specialize in events.

I normally get the "oh ..."

Meaning, they don't have an "event" to photograph, they want portraits so I'm not the one for them.

This is where I play catch up and follow with, "But I like to call myself a lifestyle photographer because I don't like posing families. I mean, what three year old is going to sit perfectly still in front of my lens for an hour session? I let you guys be ... well YOU. We have fun on our sessions and nothing really is 'posed' per say, we will definitely have fun and you'll get great family portraits out of it."

Phew. Saved right?

Well, sorta. I book the client, we have fun, they love their pictures, it gets posted on my Facebook page or Blog and that's that.

I recently put an ad together for my Facebook cover and realized ... I photograph pretty much everything ...

(Watch in HD on YouTube)

But those "portraits" aren't my niche are they?

Or when I wanna get creative and I ask for a volunteer model and we get creative. I now have a beautiful portrait of a model and now headshots are being asked for by other models.

What about the vendor that asked me to photograph their products? Heck yeah. I'll support another small business.

Or the client who has been coming to me for all their life's moments? Their engagement, their wedding, their newborn ....

ERRRRRRRRRRR?! What?! (those were tire screech marks if you couldn't tell)

I do NOT do newborn. But for them, I decided to ... and I put my own spin to it. "

Lifestyle Newborn"

And they loved it.

I tried boudoir for Valentines Day ... nope, not my niche ... but I tried it.

Basically, what I'm alluding to is that my niche isn't a niche at all. It's about me trying.

It's my business, I get to run it how I want. 

I can say yes to one session and no to another. If I wanna give it a try, I'll give it a try.

Does this work for everyone? No ... but it appears to work for me.

But I am a photojournalistic, lifestyle photographer who loves natural light and capturing moments as they happen. That's my niche.

But let's get one thing straight, if you want boudoir or posed newborn images ... I am NOT the photographer for you. But I will point you in the right direction to someone WAY better at those niche's than I!

;)

Run your business how you see fit, girlfriend.

After all, you are the Girl Boss.

I Ain't Ashamed | Girl Boss

Guys.

I work from home.

I have a toddler.

Sometimes, you gotta do what you gotta do to get shit done.

After all, you're STILL running a business.

When you know your raging toddler is tired but won't take a nap because he's a

"Big Boy Now."

I mean, you even turned his crib into toddler bed. So, I guess he's right.

Right?

Nope, because this sweet baby boy is being a monster right now and I gotta get work done.

So whats a work-at-home-mom to do?

Grab the BINKY 

the Night-Night

get into the CAR

set the satellite radio to "SPA"

and DRIVE.

Not three minutes ....

THREE MINUTES

down the highway and he's snoring.

Yep.

The plan was to drive to Starbucks and hopefully he'd fall asleep somewhere in between ... if I had to drive to New Mexico, I would have. But he fell asleep much quicker.

But I was STILL going to get my Starbucks.

After all ... he DID wake up at 4:30am.

Sweet success.

I ain't ashamed.

Good luck out there Boss Moms!

You've got this!

Making the Most of Your Time | Girl Boss

Y'all ... I have a problem with staying on task.

I guess you could say I'm ADD. 

Maybe that's where my kid got the craziness ....

NO...

No, he got that from his father.

I swear it. Never from me. I'm awesome and perfect.

LOL

I digress.

Anyway, ... wait see? I can't even keep my thoughts straight in this damn blog! ha!

Today I tried something new. I decided to set my phone alarm to keep me on track. Sometimes All the time, when I'm on the computer, I seem to bounce from one task to another.

I'll be editing, then I'll check Facebook, then 15 minutes lost, I'll get back to editing. Then I get bored and start something personal, then 30 mins lost, I'll get back to editing or what the hell, I'll switch to blogging. And by the time I know it, the eldest is home and the baby is awake from the nap and now I'm juggling afternoon snacks and telling the baby to stop messing with my photo props, and eldest that no, he cannot play the xbox until his homework is down and then ....

SHIT.

I forgot to thaw the meat for dinner. And oh by the way, the editing that was due today is not done and now I have to spend the evening away from the family to finish editing and get the gallery up for the wonderful family that hired me but now I'm not close to my family because I'm locked in the dark making some other family happy.

Exhausting, right?

I mean, everyone makes being a work-at-home mom seem so simple. In actuality, it's not. When you go to an office, you're family is already taken care of. Whether they're at school or daycare. You are not interrupted by crying, hungry babies or angry, hormonal kids not wanting to do homework. You are in an office with other people who are stuck in an office doing their jobs. So more than likely, you can get your job done and complete, minus the phone calls or noisy co-workers.

Work-at-home moms rock because they still have to do laundry, watch the kids, make dinner and all that jazz. And that my dear friends, is why nap time is so extra special to work-at-home moms so you HAVE to be able to manage it perfectly.

So the thing I did differently, as I mentioned above before I went on my soap-box, was that I timed my "nap-time work schedule." My littlest sleeps from about noon to 3pm. So that gives me three hours to get shit done. Today I still multi-tasked but this time I timed it.

When I put the baby down for nap at noon, I threw in a load of laundry. Then I got to work at catching up on a personal photo album since, surprise! As a photographer, your own photography gets pushed to the side (i.e. editing vacations, scrapbooking, printing, hanging...ect). So, one of my goals is to catch up on my photo albums. For an hour I did just that using, Shutterfly. Then at 1pm, I began to edit client work. I did about 30 mins of one client and 30 mins of another client. That got me about 20 images, give or take, on each client done. Basically, they're almost complete. 

Then at 2pm (after throwing the wet clothes into the dryer), I forced myself to come on here and blog. Why do I say forced? Because Facebook was REALLY calling my name ... so I cheated a tad and looked on Facebook for about 10 minutes ... this is why I am now whisking through this blog hopefully not too crazily because when my "For Real STOP!" Alarm goes off, I HAVE to stop because a) my eldest comes home from school and b) if I don't wake the baby from his nap by 3pm, he won't sleep at night. GAH! 

The struggle is real folks.

And there it goes, my alarm. So I HAVE to get off people. So hopefully maybe this blog will give you a little insight in work-at-home moms. I don't want to scare you off entrepreneurs. 

I don't. 

Because seriously, working for myself is the best decision I've made. Seriously. I hate to think about working for someone else and on their schedule. I can take vacation whenever I want. I can stay home with the kids. I can partake in school activities and I can have weekends to enjoy family instead of catching up on household issues. 

Guys, be your own boss. But just realize that you'll probably work more hours in the day/night and your boss is the biggest bitch out there. ;) I'm telling ya.

Good luck y'all!